Lots of Spots: Exploring Art Techniques (Virtual Book Club)

We are just going crazy with the Lois Ehlert books here (and I can't wait to see what you've been reading). Our favorite so far has been Lots of Spots. Ehlert includes a short rhyming poem about a wide variety of striped and spotted animals (I counted 50) with an explanation of animal appearances at the end. Filled with her trademark collages, this book is as fun to look at as it is to read.

We went through the book and found animals that we wanted to recreate. I cut a simple construction paper animal shape and then we used different techniques to apply the spots.

For the flounder we used round stickers.

We painted bubble wrap and stamped our eels. This was by far the favorite. Who doesn't love bubble wrap?

The skate's spots looked splashy, so we used a bingo marker with lots of force. This was a fun one too.

The owl's spots were applied with cotton swabs and golf tees dipped in white paint.

We applied paint with a cotton ball and folded the paper in half to create the butterfly.

For the cheetah, we used a paper punch and waxed paper to create a stencil for the spots. This would've normally been a favorite because of the paper punch, but getting the holes in the waxed paper was difficult. You can see how irritated the cheetah was by the whole thing.

We had so much fun with this and none of the animals took long. It's easy to adjust it to a child's attention span. Plus there's lots more possibilities in the book for both animals and techniques (like resist painting using the round stickers. Hmmm...might have to still try that.)

Now it's your turn! I can't wait to see all the Lois-Ehlert-book-inspired-things you've been up to!

I haven't read this Ehlert book yet! I must put it on hold at my library. The lots of spots craft you've done here is fantastic, really wonderful! I especially love the snake with the bubble wrap and the owl.